Fantasy Baseball Today - 08/08: Rankings Adjustments, Prospects and More (Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: August 8, 2019

As always, we start the show with Waiver Wire players you could consider. Are we buying Zach Plesac? Is Dustin May a strikeout pitcher? And can Ian Happ get regular playing time and be productive? ... News and notes (14:16) and then it's Thurryometer time (17:40). Matt Chapman and Dan Vogelbach are in some serious slumps. Then Scott lets you know who is moving up and down his rankings (20:00) as Jeff McNeil and Corey Seager are headed in opposite directions. And we talk prospects as well (29:10) ... "Hey, Real Quick" (34:30) with Jose Ramirez, Jack Flaherty, Lance Lynn and others. And then we recap more from yesterday's games (40:40) with our thoughts on Max Fried, Ivan Nova and Brendan McKay and many more ... Your emails at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the fantasy baseball today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. With fantasy! Now here's Adam, Scott Heath and Chris. Adam Azer and Scott White here after dark. It is 11.36 p.m. Eastern.

I'm not... I know. I'm not... As tired as I am hungry. I'm very hungry. I just had a little snack. What'd you have? Myself, I had a Sunbelt granola bar.

A chocolate chip. Very tasty. I'm all about the kind bar, peanut butter and dark chocolate. Every morning. Yeah. That's a little too high end for my granola bar tastes at him. That's like a dollar 50 a bar or something outrageous. Well, if you buy, yeah, if you buy,

just buy the bar, but if you buy a pack of them, it's not that much. It's less than a buck. Yeah, it's a pricey treat. All right, welcome to the show. It's Thursday, thuriometer Thursday. I was not aware of just how ice cold Matt Chapman is. He's six for his last 63. We're going to talk about that.

Not a lot of thoreometers, though. We got some hay real quick. Jose Ramirez is Jose Ramirez really, you know, back to being elite. Two home runs and a stolen base in a doubleheader today. So a big deal. But now a pretty good day for him. And, yeah, some actually very interesting pitching performance is Dustin May. He's run into trouble in the sixth inning in each of his two starts,

but it's hard not to be encouraged, his first two starts of his career. Dustin May, very good. Brendan McKay, just like Dustin May was having a great day. Oh, man. The sixth inning came along and that went away. So we'll talk about all of that today. You go and recite poetry normally at night at all the coffee houses. Just kind of warm it up now.

The coffee houses. No, I don't do that. Okay, so here's the stat of the year. Stad of the year. I couldn't believe this. I read this in the Associated Press story today. According to Fox Sports Detroit, the Chicago White Sox became the first Major League team since at least 1974

to put a runner on base in every inning of a four-game series. That blew my mind. Every inning of a four-game series. It's a lot of base runners. It's a lot of base runners. It's the white sucks. Yeah, I mean, that's just crazy. There's best hitters on the IL,

and their other good hitters don't get on base that much. Who's their best hitter that's on the IL? Yon Moncada. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because I was like Tim Anderson's back. Yeah, Montcada's their best hitter, not Jose Abrae? Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

You're right. So who stood out on Wednesday? Who do the people need to know about? Well, Zach, freaking please, Zach. Yeah, you're going to get his name right this time. Yeah. I mean, I guess he's earned that much, but get a little tired of this. I mean, this was probably, I mean, if he did this every time out,

you know, 13 swinging strikes, seven strikeouts and six innings, then I could buy that he's a pretty good pitcher. but he doesn't. I mean, six total earn runs in his past four starts. But he has this 13 swinging strike game. He had a 16 swinging strike game during that same stretch. Really, those are the only two games where he's missed bats. It's not like he's a great ground ball pitcher.

I'm not sure how he's doing it. Good control. I'm just not sure that's enough. And, you know, I'm kind of open-minded to the idea that I could be wrong just because he pitches for the Cleveland Indians. and they're kind of like the Astros, where they're beginning to have a really good track record of maximizing output from their pitchers.

In their case, it's mostly homegrown guys, but certainly Trevor Bauer would fit the bill. Corey Kluber and Mike Clevenger, they weren't the caliber of prospects that, I mean, they were decent prospects, but not like potential aces that they've turned out to be, Carlos Carrasco, and then like Aaron Savala, like they keep doing it.

So I just, feel like in those other cases, there are underlying numbers to back it up. Yeah. Well, for me, the Police Act thing was always about the matchups. You know, he was beating up on some pretty easy competition. And I said, there's no way I'm picking him up because his next four starts are against Houston, Texas, Boston, and the Yankees. And he didn't do well against Houston. He went five innings, gave up four runs. He struck out three. Nobody's doing well against Houston.

I mean, they're amazing right now. And I thought Texas would also be quite a challenge. They don't have Joey Gallo. But, you know, there's still, the Willie Calhoun's obviously hitting well. They're still a tough lineup. And next week, it's two starts for Zach Plyzac, and it's Boston at home and the Yankees on the road.

Yeah, no way. No way. No way. I mean, the Yankees, though. The Yankees are not the Yankees. The thing I mentioned he does well, good control. That really hasn't even been true anymore. The walk rates up over three per nine.

It was true in the miners. It was true when he first got called up. But you can't even point to that as something he's doing well. Okay. Well, he's 79%. What do you think about that ownership for Pleseck? I think it's too high. Okay.

How about Dustin May? Would you rather have Dustin May, who's 66% owned? Five and two thirds, five hits one run, one walk, and seven strikeouts. It's now two starts in a row, his only two starts, where he's had five scoreless innings and then run into trouble in the sixth. And, you know, that could be a problem. He should get Miami on the road next week. It's possibly against Atlanta, because, you know, we use coming back in the rotation.

Is it even a certainty that he's going to stay in the rotation? I think he's staying in the rotation. I think so. I mean, the fact they sent Tony Gonsland down. Right. Who I think, you know, just based on performance that earned that role more, Ross Stripling's rehab start, which didn't even look like it was going to be, you know, he's going to be treated like a starter in it.

That got pushed back. Uh-huh. So I think, yeah, I think, I think May's here to stay, at least for the time being. And I don't know that he's going to be a great strikeout pitcher either. I mean, you certainly see the potential with the stuff,

but he should be great at generating ground balls. A lot of sync on a very hard fastball should induce a lot of weak contact. Yeah, I mean, you look at like his arsenal, just the pitch data from his last

start. 62% sinkers, 26% cutters, 9% curveball, 3% change-up. That's not, you know, mostly sinkers and cutters. That's not the type of arsenal that says to me he's going to strike a lot of guys out. So, you know, it does say he's going to get a lot of ground balls, as Scott mentioned. But the strikeouts are really impressive today. And it's not much of an arsenal, right? I mean, it's, I don't know what his pitch breakdown was today.

I don't know if you have that, but it's based on his first start, 85%, 86, more like 87% of his pitches were sinkers and cutters. That could be a guy who runs into trouble third time through the order, but at the very least it's worth seeing where this goes. Yeah, and I don't think that it's that unusual for a 21-year-old, just breaking into the big leagues. I mean, even if he has other pitchers, he may not rely on them, extensively at first.

And it was a lot of the same today in terms of that pitching breakdown. So, yeah, I mean, I think one thing that influences this too, I mean, the Dodgers front office, I trust them for talent evaluation as much as just about any. And apparently at the trade deadline, May and Gavin Lux were both untouchable. Well, Gavin Lux, I understand. May, well, I mean, he was considered their best pitching prospect, but clearly they valued him on that same level, because they haven't always valued some of the prospects that ranked highly in the past,

and they were mostly proven right about those. I just want to add one thing. It's not like he really went out and struggled in the sixth inning. He faced three hitters, Dustin May. He faced the heart of the Dodgers of the, Cardinals order. Goldschmidt out, Ozuna homered, and DeYoung flied out. So

it's not like, you know, he left with a bunch of runners on and the bullpen bailed him out. Well, he just gave up a solo home run. So pretty good start for Dustin May. All right, let me see if I have any standouts here. Ian Hap is a standout to me. Since being

called up, he's only like 10 or 12% owner something. Ian Hap, and it makes sense. He started five straight games. before they traded for Castianos, and since then, hadn't started at all, until today, when they put Ian Hap at second base. And he's got six walks to six strikeouts.

He hit a grand slam today, batting over 300. Obviously, it's small, but six walks and six strikeouts is really encouraging for Inhap. And David Bodie, I think they can stand to take him out of the lineup. After the Castiano's trade, sorry, Scott, after the Castianos trade, Joe Madden said, Like, basically, I don't care about hurting guys' feelings anymore. It's winning time.

You've got to perform. So, interested to see where this goes with Ian Hap. Yes. It's not just Bodie. It's Tony Kemp. Yeah. But the fact that they sent Robo Garcia back down, I mean, second base is basically unclaimed.

I think they're waiting for somebody to step up. And it could be HAP. I mean, there was plenty of enthusiasm for HAP. entering last year and he encountered what I wouldn't be wrong to call growing pains we'll see show me that smile

sorry, show me that smile yeah all right, all right, we'll see yeah, he's widely available, I'm actually going to look for him right now in one league that I'm in, pretty deep league just see maybe if I want to put a little claim in for him little claimsy little yeah yeah

Yeah. Yeah, I could use them. I need an outfielder. He's outfield eligible. So the other guy I'm putting a claim for, it's so funny. I hope you have a claim in for J.D. Davis. I already own him in this league. Oh, yeah, there you go.

That's the outfielder to pick up. Yeah. I might pick up Travis DeMere before I picked up Hap too. Oh, really? It's not really doing much. I might be a little crazy. No, you know the guy that I'm picking up over Hap is Aristides Aquino. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. The Punisher. Yeah, they talked about him today. Is that his nickname? Yeah, it's his nickname. Okay. Yeah. He had a lot of home runs at AAA. Reds outfielder, by the way.

I'm hoping that nobody picks up on him because he didn't play today on Wednesday. So I'm hoping he kind of, I can get him for a little bit. Been getting regular playing time. Yeah. As opposed to, like, Philip Irvin, who I thought had a reasonable case, but whatever. I love Philip Irvin because every time I see him, I go, Fleurvin. And it's just, it's like a professor of Frank created a baseball player. Flurbit.

All right. Today's sponsors are Seekkeek and Indochino. Indochino use the promo code FBT. Get a great discount on a custom suit. Best suit I own. Not even close. Love everything about it. And at some point, I will get another Indochino suit just next time I need a suit.

And if you're getting married or anything, you want to get your wedding party outfitted, Indochino.com. promo code FBT. It's awesome. Seat Geek, the promo code is fantasy. For $10 off your first Seat Geek purchase, you know I use Seatkeek all the time. I've been on the Seekek app all freaking day today looking at tickets for a Miami UF football game, considering going to that one, and I'm going to be monitoring that on Seekek. We got a couple games in progress. Zach Gowan, last I saw, was doing quite well. He had five scoreless innings against the Phillies.

He's now on the Diamondbacks, as you recall. And the Red Sox and Royals are currently in a weather delay in the 10th inning. But Eduardo Rodriguez had a bad start, so we will talk about him. Let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, we got some news and notes and the theriotemeter. We'll be right back on fantasy baseball today. Well, Christian Yelich, you can't be better than Mike Trout if you're not playing. He sat again with a back issue.

He could be back as early as Thursday. but yeah, day-to-day we'll call it right now for Yelich. Cory Klooper could throw about 50 pitches in a rehab start today. And what is your expectation for Corey Klooper? We'll remind people he wasn't really having that grade of a year. Yeah, but it was a month. You know, a lot of good pitchers weren't having a good April, and they've mostly all gotten back on track now, right?

I don't, that means nothing to me. I mean, it's virtually meaningless. Maybe he's bad now, but we have not enough evidence to say so. I'm excited about the return of Glover. It may only be two rehab starts I had read because, you know, obviously, as established as he is, they trust him to kind of rehab on the go. You know, the endings might be limited, those first couple starts. But yeah, he's on his way back, and that's exciting.

Austin Riley's on the IL with a knee ligament injury that he suffered while working out. That's why I never work out, people. Worried about the knee ligaments. John Carlos Stanton resumed baseball activity. Okay, so you're excited about Cory Kluber coming back. Are you excited about John Carlos Stanton coming back? I mean, resuming baseball activities is not, it's a good first step. We don't really have a concrete timetable for Stanton still.

And I suspect probably won't see him to. September, but, you know, things could evolve quickly here. So let's see. We'll wait and see. Yeah, I think September is what they're aiming for for Stanton. Glaver Torres is not up here to have a serious core injury. The Mets, forget about the Yankees. The Mets are the real team in New York.

They are 19 and 6 since the All-Star break. They are a game out of the wild card, I think, right around there. It is crazy. How about the Mets? Break up the Mets. How about the Mets? How about the Mets? I mean, J.D. Davis, I've accepted as probably good.

Jeff McNeil, I've accepted as probably a stud. And not just a batting average specialist. Exciting times. Oh, yeah. For that lineup and, you know, the rotation is really the strength of the team. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, at one point, their bullpen was just ruining everything. They were a good team with a terrible bullpen.

And they still might be. Yeah. but it hasn't come back to haunt them lately. Sean Minia could throw this week. He could be back soonish. Some of the hitters we keep talking about. Mike Tockeman stole another base. Willie Calhoun homered again,

and Bo Bichette has doubled in eight straight games. Some minor injuries. Anthony Rendon left with a toe injury. It's not considered serious. J. Abias is fine after fouling a ball off his leg. A.J. Pollack pinch hit, so he's making progress. He's a groin injury.

Hopefully he can start on Thursday. And Matt Carpenter. left after fouling a ball off of his foot. And no word on the severity right now for Matt Carbenter. By the time you hear this, you might know. Scott, it is Thursday. Well, technically it's Wednesday for us. But we have eight minutes until it's Thursday.

So it's thuriameter time. I need to know how concerned you are, how thuried you are, about Matt Chapman. Still pretty good numbers for the season. 252 batting average, 340 on base, 5.04 slugging, 24 homers in 112 games. But in his last 19 games,

Matt Chapman is six. 4.63 with a 114-Bab. 0-10 thoreometer on Chapman. Maybe like a maybe like a

1, 2. Well, say 2. I feel like it's frustrating for sure because I feel like he's done this disappearing act a few times. You know, he gets he gets his numbers to a point and it looks sustainable and you're like, okay, this guy

is breaking through as an elite fantasy option, and then something like this happens. I mean, it's not always quite this bad. But, I mean, the supporting numbers still look good, so as long as we don't hear word of an injury that's holding him back, I think he's going to snap out of it sooner than later. Okay, so that's Matt Chapman. Would you rather have Matt Chapman or Josh Donaldson?

Chapman. Really? Yeah. Okay. So that means you like Chapman, quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, Donaldson is a perpetual injury risk. Oh, come on. It's August.

He's not going to get hurt. Oh, so he can't get hurt. Yeah, he's made it through it this far. Okay, cool. Thank you. So Daniel Vogelbach is the other guy in the thuriameter. 225 batting average, 26 home runs. And in his last 41 games entering Wednesday, which was not a good day for Vogelbach, he's batting 173 with nine homers, five doubles, 25 walks, 48th strikeouts, a 181 Babbat.

Still walking, still a decent amount of power. I mean, the ISO is good. It's 230 in this stretch, but a 173 batting average. He's been kind of an annoying player, Vogelbach. Thuriameter on him. maybe like a three i mean obviously the playing time is secure now because they've traded away so many other bats his you know his batting average has fallen to a point where you know the supporting stats say he's underachieving and so i expect that to correct i think he's i think he's a fine like third tier third baseman somebody who deserves to be rostered in most mixed leagues but, you know, it's a lot of people won't have reason to, it's not like he's must start.

Okay, Vogelbach. All right, Scott, you said on a show on Tuesday, you said that today was your Tuesday was your day where you were going to adjust your rankings. So we want to know what were some of your biggest rankings movers? Well, one of them was Jeff McNeil, who I said on that show would be, and he was. Yeah, you kept your promise.

We appreciate that. Thomas for Jeff McDeel, who homered again today, Thursday, or Wednesday. That brings him to 15 for the season. 12 have come in his past 43 games, and you project that out over a season. You're talking about like a 40 homer pace that he's performed at for the last month and a half. And this is a guy who, last year in the minors, and this was mostly at AA, so not the, not at AAA Las Vegas, which was an extreme hitter-friendly environment, even before the juice balls.

19 home runs and 88 of bats in the minors last year for Jeff McNeil. So I was wondering if we would ever see it in the majors, but it seems like you are. Wait, wait, wait, 88 games. Yeah, 88 games. Oh, my gosh. 99 home runs.

19 home runs and 88 games. Okay. Yeah. In the minors last year. The minors, okay. Mostly double A. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, no, this is great. I mean, he's a ground ball hitter, but it doesn't have a very high. I mean, going into today, he had a 12.8% home run to fly ball rate. That's nothing. So, uh, even if he doesn't hit home runs,

I mean, he's so valuable. And as we said on the show the other day, you remove his pinch hit appearances. You just look at his starts. He was third in points per game at second base. Yeah, and I should probably clarify because I feel like I, I just did a video where I didn't connect these dots completely.

Just because he's been on a 40 homer pace over the past month and a half doesn't mean I think he profiles as a 40 homer guy. But there's power there. There's 20 to 25 homer power potentially. All right. So McNeil is, who'd you move him ahead of? I moved him ahead of.

Glaber Torres and Yon-Mukata. I guess that was easy because they're injured. Lordus Guriel. Um, Keston Hira, Jonathan V.R. And a Roto league. He is now 10th at second base. McNeil is. So I still have him behind like Ozzy Albi's.

I have him behind Eduardo Escobar, which I don't know that I feel great about. Javier Bay is Max Muncie. You know, it, I'm not saying he's definitively worse than that group, but it's, that's a tough group to break into because you know they're great. Whatever. No concerns there. You know, I wanted to talk. about Glaver Torres. He is heard, as Scott mentioned, but seems like he's dodged a bullet and might be able to avoid

the IL. But even still... I heard that once before, but yeah. But he did avoid the I. Well, oh, oh, that was a couple days ago. But yeah, and then he, right. But they took a scan or whatever. There's no tear.

There's no sports hernia or anything like that. Yeah. But this is a guy who's 21. Or no, he's 22. He's 22 years old. and Glaber Torres has an 852 OPS

he's having a great year and it's like not even registering and he shows up a little bit lower than you'd expect he's around 10th at second base because he does sit every now and then you know

they have like some they had anyway some surplus infielders but I don't know man it's like are we looking at a super star in Glaber Torres, or is an 852 OPS not really anything so impressive? Two years now, 123 OPS plus, 124 OPS plus, 100s average. So, yeah, I mean, again, I just think it's amazing what he's doing at age 22.

It is. It is amazing. I'm amazed. Good. It could be a superstar. It's too early to say. And it's, you know, I'm still kind of having to recalibrate. what superstar numbers look like in this environment.

But nothing that he's doing this year looks especially unsustainable. I mean, he's cut down his strikeout rate from his rookie season. His babs just a little over 300. Solid line drive rate, solid fly ball rate. It looks like a good player. Look good hitter. All right. Who else is a big mover up or down in your rankings?

Sorry and install enough for your yon. Yeah. Oh, boy, I'm really, it's a tough one. Corey Seeger. Move it down. Yeah. Which is kind of inevitable with all the good players at shortstop. Bo Bichette, obviously, the most recent addition to that group, guys who just have to rank ahead of Corey Seeger. But he's been especially bad, Seeger has, since coming back from the hamstring injury.

and just hasn't looked right all year coming off Tommy John's surgery. I imagine that's not a coincidence. The play discipline's good, but he just hasn't been hitting the ball with the same authority. And I'm not ruling out that, you know, it suddenly clicks,

and he's great over the final, you know, seven weeks or whatever's left. But you can't pass up some of these other short stops with the expectation of that happening. All right, give me one or two more. Josh Hader, moving down. Moving down. Moving down.

Yeah, six of his past 12 appearances. Okay, so forget the fact that his ERA has risen to run since the start of July. Six of his past 12 appearances, he has been removed before the ninth inning. Clearly, in half of the appearance is not used at all like you'd expect a closer to be used. So I think he's back to not being a true closer anymore And obviously that takes him from top five reliever status and fantasy To maybe top 12 still, but it's a pretty big drop Okay, Josh Hater

So Hater and Seeger are falling McNeil's rising You have one other riser? The one I wrote down was Kluber, but we just talked about him Okay Let me see if I could spot one real quick to talk about. Okay. Danny Santana.

Okay. I moved him up quite a bit. He's now 31st in the outfield. And I think we're in the 15 to 20 range in the infield spots where he's available. They, they, as Drew Bull Cabrera is out of the picture now. So job security, Santana has. And it's not like he slowed down. You know, contributing batting average, home runs, steals. Looking like a must-start option.

Especially considering his versatility. So we put Scott on the spot with the rankings adjustments. Now let's get Scott on the spot for some prospects. We want to know the prospects to stash right now, the guys that could be coming up for your stretch run. We'll tell you about them after this quick break on fantasy baseball today. Scott, before we talk about the prospects, well, before we get your list.

We have a couple questions about prospects. This comes from Temple Friend. Hey, Max and Noodles. I don't know which one do you want to be? Noodles sounds like so much more fun. Okay. To the Max. Dynasty League question, would you drop Victor Robles

to pick up Louis Robert? In a Dynasty League? Yeah. Oh. Oh, hmm. That is, man, that's kind of difficult, actually. I think as excited as you were about rostering Victor Robles in a dynasty league prior to this season, and presumably over the past few seasons, it would be kind of silly to pull the plug on him now.

But Robert looks like a very, very exciting prospect. I just got to feel like there's someone else you could drop for Robert. Like, first of all, I mean, how the fact Roberts is even available in the dynasty, what kind of Dynasty League is this? But you can even pick them up. This is ridiculous. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, it's a good point.

I don't know what that's all about. Yeah, by the way, this is once upon a time in America. That would be Max and Noodles. Never seen it. This is question from Jim. Who do you think will be up first? And who do you think will be better this year and next year? Gavin Lux or Kyle Tucker?

You know, I'm actually writing the latest prospects report now, and I have my five on the verge, which are the five, I think, are the most worth stashing. And Kyle Tucker's been at the top of that list for several weeks now. I'm actually moving Gavin Lux to the top of that list for this week because the oblique injury to Alex Verdugo, obviously Gavin Lux didn't get called up. That wasn't the move the Dodgers made.

in response to that. But it does clear a path for Lux for several weeks, most likely, because now, I mean, it already looked like there was an avenue there just because the Dodgers decided they weren't going to play Jack Peterson at first base anymore. He was kind of struggling. They could move him out of the lineup to make room for Lux, shifting Muncie over to first base. Obviously, Lux takes over at second. But now they don't even have to do that.

They can have Peterson and Lux in the lineup without benching anybody of significance. and the, I mean, Lux is still batting 450 at AAA. It's ridiculous. Wow. Like, even strikeout to walk rate, you know, tons of power. His bat speed is so good.

And obviously the Dodgers, like this isn't a situation like the White Sox with Louise Robert, where they're just, you know, playing the financial game because they're not playing for anything. Anyway, the Dodgers lost the last two world series and are trying to get back there and win it.

Lux could be a big part of that. So I think it's, you know, I'm kind of going off on a tangent here, but I think there's a better case to be made for Lux getting called up right now than Tucker. Long term, it kind of feels like a coin flip, but, you know, I think I'd lean Lux right now. All right. Who else are we stashing? That was a good tangent, by the way. I enjoyed that tangent. Who else are we stashing? Yes. I am also stashing. dashing. So Tucker's second on the list. Louise Robert is third, though. I would put the

chances of getting called up this year at less likely than not. Less than 50% chance. Probably won't get called up this year, but there's a chance and it could be huge and whatever. Justice Sheffield, we still don't know who's going to take Mike Leake's

place in the rotation because the Mariners had a lot off days. They haven't needed a fifth starter, but he had another dandy at AA, 149 ERA down there, and less than two walks per nine in his 10 starts for AA. So the control issue, he seems to have whipped that, Justice Sheffield. Joe Adele of the Angels joins my five on the verge. Kind of like Robert in that.

I'm not necessarily expecting him to get called up this year, but the impact could be considerable if he is. He just got moved to AAA. He's a top 10 prospect on basically everybody's list. And I'll throw a couple more names at you. Jesus Luzardo made his first start of his second rehab stint. Look terrific in two innings. Several more rehab starts in front of him, probably.

But there's a chance he's still an impact pitcher in September. And Thai France is basically Ty Cobb right now, 391, leads all minor league hitters above rookie ball. and he also has 26 home runs. Like low strikeout rate. Just amazing, amazing production from a 25-year-old non-prospect. He started three straight games, at least coming into today, he'd started three straight games at second base, not his natural position, but Luis Sirius is again falling flat on his face

at the major league level. I'm intrigued by the possibility of France taking over there. Thai France. All right. That's your prospect report. Thank you very much, Scott. Hey, real quick, Scott. Alex Bregman or Jose Ramirez?

I will take Bregman, of course. Oh, yeah, what about in a Roto League? Yeah, I'm still taking Bregman, who his numbers are pretty great as it is, but I feel like is going to bring that batting average up to close out the season. Yeah, we've been saying that. He's only batting 270, 27 home.

runs for Bregman, 67 RBI's, feels a little low to me. 82 runs scored in four steals. Jose Ramirez, yeah, big day for him. He had been slumping, though. He had gone seven games without a walk, which was weird, or a home run, 192. Like, I did that, you know, celebration when his OPS got over 700 or whatever it was. And then, you know, he got up to like 750-ish, and then a 192 slump over seven days with seven games without a walk.

Very surprising, but huge day today for Jose Ramirez. I just, you know, a lot of steals. And I do wonder if people value him as like a late first round pick right now. I know that sounds crazy. It sounds a little crazy, but he steals bases. He steals a lot of them. Yeah. I hear you.

Like even if he stays at this pace, the pace he's been on for the past, I don't even know how long it's been several weeks since he's been good again. Even if he sustains that pace, there's going to be clear trust issues heading into next year, rightfully. Like, I am mostly bullish on him right now. But it's just so confusing what went wrong. And it's confusing what's gone right again. And you could point to things like poll percentage and fly ball rate and they look better now than they did before. But like it shouldn't lead to that drastic of a swing in production.

It really shouldn't. Well, I got a quote I can read for you. I shouldn't have interrupted you yet because I don't have it. But it was Terry Francona talking about Jose Ramirez. He did mention that Ramirez had confidence issues during this whole thing. He said that, where's the damn quote? Yeah, I don't have it, Scott. I'll get it.

Well, confident. I think that's the basic point, right? Confidence issues? Yeah, he said he had. had some things going wrong and then he lost his confidence. All right, they had a doubleheader today, so maybe it was in the other recap of the game. You know, it's tricky.

Got to check them both. Yeah, yeah. I'm not, I'm not sure. I feel, I'm not saying a player could have confidence issues and that's the reason he struggles. And that seems highly plausible to me. But I feel like it would show in more ways than just, his batting average plummeting, you know?

But, I mean, it's a really hard game where my new differences can have a huge impact. So maybe, you know, maybe I'm just, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. He's a great player, Francona said about Jose Ramirez. He just got caught up in some bad habits hitting and it took him a while and his confidence took a hit. I'm satisfied. Hey, real quick, Trevor Bauer or Jack Flare? Another gem tonight for Jack Flaherty. Yeah, these aren't hard decisions for me.

You're, you know, I understand what you're trying to do here. But there's just no reason to go that far. Well, how different, I mean, Jack Flaherty has a 372 ERA and 150 strikeouts in 128 and a third. How much worse could he be than Trevor Bauer? Well, I imagine there's probably an innings difference, though. Certainly Flaherty's been pitching deep into games lately. It's just a little too much, too much of a Johnny come lately here.

Too much of a Jack come lately. Okay. I mean, look, I buy the skills. He's gone from throwing his slider, his best pitch 25% of the time to a quarter of the time to a third of the time. So maybe that has something to do with it. I mean, it stood to reason he was going to get better eventually. And maybe this is when this is happening. but I really don't have any reason to move in the head of Bauer yet.

I mean, Bauer's been really good for the better part of two seasons now. Okay. Bauer has more strikeouts, more innings. Bauer has a lot more earnings, actually. 161 in a third for Bauer to 128 in a third. Wow, big difference there. Bauer also has more wins, but Flaherty does have a better ERA right now. So that's hey real quick. How about this?

Are you buying it? Are you buying it? You know what? I get a hey real quick list. Who would you rather have rest of season? Yulee Gureel or Lance Lynn? Guriel had eight RBIs today. He has an 872 OPS on the year.

Lance Lynn, seven innings, eight strikeouts, one earn run at Cleveland. And he has 178 strikeouts. Holy cow in 155 innings. Who would you rather have real quick, Guriel or Lynn? I need pitching a lot of. lot more than I need corner infielders. That's not a difficult decision.

It's Lynn. Are you buying their production? Yeah, pretty much. I agree I looked like he was beginning to fall off and then suddenly three home runs in two days, eight RBI today. RBI's. Yeah, I mean,

I think he's going to be a must start rest of season at either of those positions. but Lynn, Lynn's a confusing case, but basically since April he's been this, and this is not something that you're coming across often at starting pitcher. All right, let's go to the four-man rotation.

Dropper hold, Max Freed, 10 strikeouts at Minnesota, and was scoreless through five, then gave up three runs in the sixth inning. Brave's having a tough, Brave starters having a tough time with that sixth inning. Two days in a row.

But now, Max Freed has a strikeout per inning now. 122Ks and 121 and a third. Yep. Drop him, hold him, start him, sit him. What do you do? Hold him. He's good. He's good.

I think he's even better than he's been. And the peripherals back up that statement. So I can live with sort of the underwhelming starts, which have been a little more common to play. But back to back, I think very solid starts from Freed. and at the very least you want them around for playing matchups and two-star weeks and all of that. Eduardo Rodriguez, five innings, two runs, three strikeouts against the Kansas City Royals. Yeah, I just don't think you can do a lot better on the waiver wire.

Like, I'm not dropping him for Savali, I don't think. Dustin May? No, it's been a little underwhelming, but a little underwhelming is still pretty good. good by the 2019 context. Joey Lucchasey, five and a third, five hits, two runs and eight strikeouts at Seattle. Seattle cannot hit, by the way. And yeah, Lucchese, that's a pretty typical Lucchese start. Right.

What do you do with him? He's kind of, I guess, a poor man's, Eduardo Rodriguez. And a lot of that's because he pitches for the Padres and not the Red Sox. But this is now, what, four starts in five of less than six innings and just, I mean, I don't know. The ratios aren't quite good enough for him to get away with. Like, I don't know. I don't know. He's not that good, but he might be the best you can do in some situations.

Okay. And James Paxton, obviously, we're not dropping him, but are you confident in Paxton right now? It's two good starts in a row after two really bad starts in a row. Yeah, I'm pretty confident in him. I think as confident is justifiable, given some of the things he's gone through this year. But the stuff has looked good throughout. There's been some questions whether he's been pitching through injury or not. I think I'd be confident running him out there for the way these last two starts have gone.

Well, it's just so strange how bad he's been in the first inning. So you just hope he can make an adjustment there. He's got two starts next week. James Paxton has Baltimore and Cleveland. I know how I feel about Paxton now. I'm going to start him every time he takes the ball, unless he's just terrible for two straight starts or something. But obviously I'm going to start him.

I'm curious how I'm going to feel about him next season. Because I do still think there's a possibility that he de Grombs. and really breaks out and puts it all together because his strikeout rate is just through the roof and his walk to strike out rate is through the roof. What are we talking about? Paxton. Oh, yeah.

Well, I mean, he's older than you probably think. Yeah, so is the Grom, though. Yeah. But Paxton's even older. Older than the Grom? Paxton is 30. The Grom's older than that, isn't he? Well...

DeGrom is 31, yes. But, well, I don't know. Maybe he is. I guess his age 30 season is the one you're talking about. When you say DeGromit, where he went from Ace to Uber Ace. Yeah, Cy Young. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. That's fair. By DeGromming it, you could mean going from Scroby Minor League or to Ace, so I wasn't sure. I meant, yeah, take the next step. And I thought that would happen this year because Paxton, to me, felt like a home run to fly ball victim. in 2007, 18, and that's what DeGrom was in 2017. But it has not happened. I think the knee injury has been a big reason for that.

Fringy starting pitchers, all right, we talked about Pliatsack, we talked about Dustin May. We did not talk about Stephen Mats or Jordan Yamamoto or Brandon M.K. Stephen Mats, Yamamoto, and McKay. How would you rank them? I would go McKay. Okay. Matt's and Yamamoto, I guess. I don't...

I'm not super excited about any of them. I think McKay has shown enough that you have to keep him around. I don't want to make the same mistake I made with Zach Gallin. Oh, he's never going six innings, so... What good is he going to be, really? And then he just starts turning in gym after gym, including today, by the way.

Yeah, but only five innings for Galen. But it was a great start. Yeah, one hit, three walks, six strikeouts. He is going to win it. Yeah, no, McKay, I mean, it was looking like it was going to be a really good start. It was five innings one run with eight strikeouts, and he came out for the sixth inning, didn't record an out against the Blue Jays. He gave up two run runs, and it ends up being five innings three runs, eight strikeouts.

But he does have three walks to 33 strikeouts in 29 and two thirds. That number right there is impressive and gives you some hope. In the bullpen, Carlos Martinez blew his three. third save, he actually did not even start the ninth inning in a two in a one-nothing game. Andrew Miller started it, and it made sense. Miller's the lefty, Cody Bellinger, and Corey Seeger were due up. They both struggled. Anthony Bass got a save for the Mariners.

That's their first save since the trade deadline. And Ken Giles is back. He got a save, but he struggled doing so. He gave up a home run and two runs. Still hung on for his 15th save. Deep Leagues mentioned Ian Hap earlier. How about these pitchers? in Joe Ross for the Nationals.

Yvonne Nova, who's given up tour and runs in 28 innings in his last four starts for the White Sox or Texas starting pitcher Ariel Harado. Joe Ross, Yvonne Nova, Ariel Harado. It was an impressive start for Ross. 15 swinging strikes, three hits and six innings. Something to build on, but he has a lot of building to do. Yeah. Yvonne Nova is on a nice four-start stretch here, but I mean, this. start one strike out in eight innings

versus three walks. It just doesn't seem like anything he's going to be able to sustain. I feel like Nova in Spanish means don't go. Like he doesn't go. I don't remember. The thing about

my education in Español, I basically just remember nouns. and I guess maybe adjectives too, but especially nouns. Verbs like tenere and kerere. That's like, I don't really remember verbs. Like, I don't know. My mind just couldn't make the longstanding connection with that part of.

Well, VA is a form of the verb, ear to go, I are. and Nova, according to Spanish, according to Google, means not going. So that's, I am not going to pick up Ivan Nova, is what I was trying to say. Okay. You can't spell Nova without not going, essentially.

I mean, he's a supernova right now, but you know what happens with supernova. I guess it's already a supernova when it's exploding, right? Yeah, I guess something. I'm better at Spanish than Astrology. Yeah, we're botching both right now, I think. All right, so we're going to end. Did you say anything about Ariel Horado?

Did you want to? I don't want to. Okay, then don't. Griffin from Des Moines, Iowa, has an email. How could I not read this email? My league has been split for the better part of the year on who is the most valuable player in fantasy for our specific format.

Half of the league has been Team Yewitch, while the other half has been Team Trout. The format of our league is five by five categories with on-base percentage instead of average. We pretty much agreed to disagree until Adam brought up the topic on Tuesday's show. Because the majority of the league are frequent listeners and Adam's word is practically gospel,

oh, nice. Both sides were embracing his argument. The yellow supporters took to the fact that you pointed out the disparity in steals, while the trout supporters latched on to the fact that you would prefer trout in points leagues and therefore his walks would be enough to set him apart. Rather than spending the day arguing how to interpret the comments,

we thought we'd go straight to the source. Wow. All right. So all I talked about was a points league where I said I'd take Trout. And a 5-by-5 Rotel league with batting average, not OBP, where I'm leaning Yelich.

In an OBP league, I just want to pull up the number. I have my answer, but I'm just going to make sure, like, now I don't have my answer anymore. Because I thought Trout's OVP was going to be a lot. better than yellowish is.

It's 12 points better. No. But, but Mike Trout is so incredible in OBP. It's mind-blowing. In an OBP league, I would go with Mike Trout. Mike Trout keeps getting better in terms of play discipline. Like, he's been the best player in baseball since he broke into the league, and yet he keeps getting better.

But I think the mistake may be those in this league. are making is the same mistake people always make when they decide to take somebody over Trout at the start of the new year. Like if the if the question is who is better, who has been better in 2019, who will end up being better in 2019? The answer is for all formats, Yelich. No, that's, that's, that's not, but what's amazing about that, Scott, is that going into tonight's game, he's only four and a half fantasy points better than Mike Trout.

So, well, in terms of per game, I don't think it's especially close. Okay. I know Yelich has been in and out of the lineup. Okay. Probably more than Trout has. All right. I think Trout's been pretty healthy this year. Um, but yeah.

Like, it's, it's Yelich. Yeah, yeah. He's, yeah, he's probably going to win MVP twice in a row. I mean, maybe Belanger was just like Mike Trout doing typical Trout things. And this is Yelich having this historic season that even coming off an MVP season, nobody saw this coming. No, but it's just. But maybe we should. I mean, he's so good.

He's very good. He's running. He is my pick to be the second best player in fantasy next year. Yeah. You know, steals are tricky because, as I had mentioned before, in a Roto League, a batting average Roto League, I bid pretty heavily on Mike Trout and Jose Al-Tube, and I thought, you know, I'll be pretty good in steals. And they, I don't even think they've combined for 15 steals this year.

Yelich is more of a flyball hitter now than ever before, and it's not even close. He has a 37.4% fly ball rate. Last year, it was 23.5. In his career, it's 22%. So that gives me hope that he can keep on being a superstar. I think that what I just said about steals is an argument against Yelich. Look, Yelich is 14 more steals than Trout. right now would it surprise me next year if trout had more i think i'm talking myself into trout

well wait a second here what this is a this is a good fun with numbers exercise okay so i said the distance between yellich and trout and per game was pretty significant i'm not taking that back it's 4.89 for yellich it's 4.66 for trout that's that's like the difference between trout and bellinger it's like the difference between belliger and jordan alvarez or george springer you know so that that kind of gives you an idea how big of a difference it is i would i would assume and yet the difference in terms of games trouts only played four more games than yellage it's not really that many right and yet there's only a four point difference i don't know those four games and four points add up to what seems like a pretty big difference at per game production but i'm not

sure what all any of that means yet maybe just that There's, it's a fine line between everybody and what are we all arguing about anyway. Oh, well. Everybody's good. Trout is bustproof. I mean, that's the bottom line. He's bustproof. So I am sort of talking myself into Trout right now, but in an OBP league, it's Trout.

His on-base percentage is, it's just like, I think it's the most underrated part of his game. It's just how often he gets on base. I just want to see over the last few years. It's 440 this year. It was 460 last year. This is going to be, if he gets to 440, this is going to be four straight years with a 440 on base percentage or better.

I mean, like, that's ridiculous. Okay, thank you very much for listening. The last thing I want to check, I'm because I'm curious what was Yewitch's on base percentage last season. It was 402. It's 428 this year. Okay, so the decision has been made.

The choice is made. The chat. Challenger has come. Is that Ghostbusters? That's Ghostbusters, right? Yeah, yeah. I didn't choose anything. The Destructor.

The Destructor has gone, whatever she says. Yeah, she's a bad villain. She's a bad, bad guy. That's why I like Ghostbusters 2 better than Ghostbusters 1. She's barely in the movie. Yeah. She, they kind of go into her backstory, but she's not scary. I mean, there's a Ghostbusters.

What is the central conflict of Ghostbusters? It's not that as much as it's them trying to be seen as credible. And she is the instrument for making them credible. That's really the conflict. It's an overrated movie. Oh, come on. It's good. It's Ghostbusters, too, is better.

No. Better bad guy. More fun. I agree with a lot of your opinions people give you crap for, but this is one I cannot abide. Ghostbusters is vastly superior to Ghostbusters too. Most people would agree. And I'm sorry to everybody who thinks my word is gospel. I probably just ruined it.

And now maybe you should take diligence. All right, we're out of here. Scott's not going to be on the show on Friday. Chris and I will be on the show on Friday. Until then, we'll talk to you later here on fantasy baseball today.